Since nothing ever goes as planned..... I'm still learning to enjoy the journey.

Perpetual Plan B

Monday, June 21, 2010

Things That Are Stressful:

Here are a few things, off the top of my head, and in no particular order, that are stressful:

Buying a house: stressful.

Finding out some of the appliances in your new house don’t work: stressful.

Finding out the hinges on most of the cupboard doors are broken in your new house: stressful.

Selling a house: stressful.

Fixing up a house to sell: stressful.

Getting all the new carpet, air conditioning, tile, etc. (that you always wanted while you actually lived there) put in before you sell the house: stressful and some other adjective that I can’t think of right now.

Remodeling a whole house before you move in: stressful (and smart, I think).

Picking out new paint, moldings, fixtures, hardware, carpet, tile, etc. within a few days: sounds fun, but in reality is pretty stressful.

Putting together light fixtures that were made in China and don’t have the holes drilled in the right place: annoying and stressful.

Packing: stressful.

Moving: stressful.

Having two different doctor appointments for two different kids scheduled for moving day: stressful.

Having the doors open so much from moving that the kids now forget to close them on a regular basis: stressful.

Flies as a result of the doors not being closed on a regular basis: stressful.

Having birds fly into your house: stressful and messy.

Having other people help move your stuff: stressful.

Having everything arranged in your new house and going back to the old one and realizing that you still have over half your stuff there and nowhere to put it: stressful.

Carrying two mortgages: very stressful.

Carrying two mortgages while paying for remodeling and a new washer and dryer (and water softener, which is very necessary here): extremely stressful.

Running out of money, so needing to keep the dark teal kitchen countertop with a white racing stripe and pink laundry room countertop: stressful.

Arguing with the painter about what color to paint your kitchen because the color you have your heart set on clashes quite terribly with your dark teal kitchen countertop with the white racing stripe: stressful.

Driving to your old house to do laundry every day because your new washer and dryer won’t be in for two weeks: stressful.

Showing a house where your cat still lives to people who are allergic to cats: stressful.

Trying to move your cat to a house around the corner: stressful.

Taking care of two yards: stressful.

Picking a phone company: stressful.

Picking an internet provider: stressful.

Picking a t.v. service provider: stressful.

Deciding to bundle: not so stressful.

Deciding who to bundle with: stressful.

Having people come and go to and from both houses at all hours of the day and night: stressful.

Not knowing when to take a shower because you never know when someone will show up: stressful.

Waiting a long time for people to show up (or sometimes not show up): stressful.

Needing to get a pedicure (though I haven’t had a real one in over two years), and not having time: stressful.

Needing to get a haircut and not having time: stressful.

Needing to get a life and not having time: stressful.

Not having a regular routine for meals, etc.: stressful.

Having a husband who works long hours that vary from day to day: stressful.

Having a husband who is on the phone 24/7 so I can’t have an uninterrupted conversation with him: stressful.

Having a husband who is caring for our two yards AND his mom’s yard that is 30 miles away (each one over ½ acre): stressful.

Having a husband who is bishop, while doing all of the above: stressful.

Having a husband who is doing all of the above, when you are trying to remodel a house and need his input to help make some of the decisions: stressful.

Teaching a 15 year old daughter to drive: stressful.

Teaching a 15 year old daughter to drive in a car you really like, that is your first new car in over 15 years: very stressful.

Having a 12 year old daughter who doesn’t like to work: stressful.

Having a 12 year old daughter who acts extremely unpleasant when you are trying to get her to work: stressful.

Having a 12 year old daughter who thinks she’s 18 and should have all the freedom in the world: stressful.

Having a 12 year old daughter who thinks you’re an idiot, and so do her friends: stressful.

Leaving your 12 year old daughter and her 11 year old cousin “in charge” while you take your 15 year old daughter out driving and coming home to find every breakable cup in your house in the back yard full of milk, peanut butter, granola bars and unidentified “potions”, also finding out they had made a volcano and “goop” while you were gone, using all your vinegar, baking soda and cornstarch: stressful.

Having a five year old son who has run wild and basically been an orphan for the last five weeks, so he now thinks it’s normal: stressful.

Having a five year old son who hasn’t taken a bath in over three of those last five weeks: stinky.

Being the designated driver for all your childrens' friends: stressful (where ARE their parents?).

Not eating well because you are too busy: stressful.

Going to the store to buy food, but forgetting to buy actual food and instead come home with more items to decorate your new home: stressful.

Not sleeping well because you are up all night, itching, because you are allergic to something in either your new house or yard: stressful.

Not being able to sleep in the next morning because workers need to show up early to finish up some work: stressful.

Waiting for carpet to be delivered for 3 extra weeks, when everything else is ready for you to move in: stressful.

Having your carpet finally delivered and installed in the pouring rain: stressful and soggy.

Having workers in your home while you are trying to put stuff away: stressful.

Waiting for workers show up when you need to go do other things and run errands (like buy food): stressful.

Still not being able to take a shower because you never know when a worker might drop by to finish something: stressful.

Having your child in summer Driver’s Ed. the week you are trying to move and having to drop everything twice a day to drop her off and pick her up: stressful.

Having your child in the Nibley City play the week you are trying to move: stressful.

Pulling your child out of the Nibley City play because you are too busy and the time conflicts with your other child’s summer Driver’s Ed. Then feeling guilty because they don’t have enough help so you say you will still help, so they give you 12 Indian costumes to unfray the fringe on, which take over 2 hours each: stressful.

Bribing your mom (by mowing her lawn) to help unfray the fringe on Indian costumes while she watches t.v.: brilliant (she had them done in two days, I was done in two hours.).

Also agreeing to help do the Nibley City play blog, even though my child is still not in the play: stressful.

Feeling guilty that I haven’t helped more and am letting people down: stressful.

Having people show up to “help you move” that bring lots of little kids: stressful.

Having people drop in to see your new house, when you still have a million boxes lying around to unpack: stressful.

Showing your neighbor the big drawer for dirty laundry and then realizing your underwear is right on top: embarrassing and stressful.

Having people try to help you unpack: stressful.

Moving a pool table from one basement to another, almost killing my husband in the process: stressful. (I was standing at the bottom of the stairs watching it head down and about crush him. I was literally weighing my options of whether I should jump in to help, with the possibility of having it kill both of us, making my children orphans in the process, or if I should stay away, thus ensuring them at least one parent. As you can tell, I’m still around, though I did talk encouragingly to him from a safe distance.)

Moving a 2000 pound structure from one back yard to another with about 25 people to help: stressful, but satisfying.

Freaking out in front of my neighbor when the girls told me that Hal had told a lady she could come see our old house in one hour, when we had just started moving out and it was a wreck: stressful.

Feeling like you now “owe” at least 100 people who have helped you in one way or another over the last few weeks; moving our things, feeding us, etc: stressful and grateful.

Feeling like I should apologize to at least half of those people for my behavior: stressful.

Helpful people moving our piano, not waiting for Hal to get there to supervise, and having it get lots of scrapes on it and the walls and chips broken out of it in the process: stressful and sad.

Still needing to move our entertainment center that I really like: stressful.

Really needing to go to bed, but feeling like I really want to catch up the blog: stressful.

Still trying to keep our other house presentable to show during all this chaos: stressful.

Deciding which realtor to go with once we list the house when we get our new carpet in: stressful.

Realizing we have ticked off ALL our realtor friends/relatives/neighbors who have come to give us a sales pitch, that we will not hire: stressful.

Dealing with any realtors at all: stressful (no offense intended to anyone who may be a realtor, it just has been really stressful).

Wanting to go to the home show this week and not having time: stressful.

Leaving my five year old with a neighbor, unsupervised (I thought there was an adult there), and finding out that they have gotten into the Otter Pops and gotten the entire kitchen and the new living room carpet sticky: stressful.

Hiding the box of Otter Pops and having my 5 year old and his little friend find the box in the garage and drinking the liquid out of the entire box of Otter Pops: stressful and disgusting.

Realizing that I have a good enough reason to never buy Otter Pops again: liberating.

Waking up on Father’s Day and realizing I’ve forgotten to do anything for either my husband or my father: stressful.

Sluffing Sunday School to just sit down by myself for a few minutes to do nothing: honestly, very relaxing.

Trying to scare up a nice Father’s Day meal and realizing that I still don’t have anything in the house to fix a decent meal with: stressful.

Trying to decide which is worse, making your child wash off the Harry Potter scar tattoo so he can go to church or letting him show up at church with the tattoo and making your husband (the bishop) unhappy: stressful.

Having my son's speech therapist finally call to make a summer appointment and having her insist on the one time my daughter is scheduled to have some suspicious moles removed (I've had melanoma): stressful.

Trying to reschedule, but the phone is here and the calendar is there: stressful.

Driving back and forth for to do laundry because we live in one house, but the washer and dryer are at the other house: stressful.

Catching your son guzzling water out of a 10 year old jug of distilled water that has been in your garage: stressful.

Still not finding my camera and missing lots of great photo ops in the last few weeks: stressful!

Having all of the above happen within a one month time period, give or take a few days: DEATH DEFYING.